After being closed due to the Pocket Fire since June 19, the Arizona Department of Transportation reopened State Route 89A between Sedona and Interstate 17 interchange south of Flagstaff — from mileposts 374 to 397 — on the morning of July 13.
Since the fire began, residents of Clarkdale, Cottonwood, Jerome and Cornville have seen a plume of smoke rising about the Sedona area to the northeast — for residents of Camp Verde, Rimrock and Lake Montezuma, the smoke was due north.
Coconino County Sheriff’s deputies only allowed canyon residents to access their homes and ingress and egress the canyon with proof of residency after July 23. Even so, the state highway was closed, with only emergency vehicles heading between the northern and southern ends of the fire. Residents were not allowed to exit the north end and could only leave the canyon through Sedona.
Oak Creek Canyon businesses are wholly dependent on tourist traffic that traverses the canyon daily, be it day-trippers from the Phoenix metro area coming to Oak Creek Canyon to get out of the Phoenician heat in the summer, or Grand Canyon visitors who opt for a drive on State Route 89A down Oak Creek Canyon rather than Interstate 17 on their way south.
The 26-day closure hit these businesses hard as many of them operate on thin profit margins and require the mid- July business to help them make it through the summer. But it’s not just the business owners but the hundreds of employees working at the restaurants, shops, motels, bed-and-breakfasts and other operations and contract workers for short-term rentals and private homes in the canyon, like maids, construction, home repair technicians and tradesmen — most of whom live throughout the Verde Valley — who could not work their contracted jobs due to the closures.
We have heard that some of the businesses with some money to spare have paid or offered to pay their workers while the canyon was closed knowing that they have rent and bills to pay, but others simply don’t have the revenue to offer when they themselves are struggling to stay open until the canyon reopened.
The fire’s proximity to Sedona and its affects on the Verde Valley as a whole, mainly from the smoke that filled the sky in the mornings, dropped tourism numbers even thought the Pocket Fire was never closer than six miles north of Sedona, a mile west of Oak Creek Canyon and several miles east of Sycamore Canyon. In-state and national news media reporting that the fire was “near Sedona” gave visitors the false impression that the fire was far closer to Sedona than it really. Most people who visit Sedona conflate the vast “Sedona area” — which is 300 to 400 square miles — with the very narrow “Sedona” proper, which is only 23.6 square miles. Many visitors who come to Jerome, Tuzigoot National Monument, Red Rock State Park, the wineries in Page Springs and Cornville and the wine tasting rooms in Cottonwood are doing so as part of a wider visit that includes Sedona in some fashion, be it for hiking, New Age spirituality activities or health and wellness vacations.
Fortunately, many of those who visit Cottonwood, Clarkdale and Camp Verde are coming solely to recreate on the Verde River and many river-related businesses weren’t affected by the fire directly, but did see a slowdown from outdoor recreation visitors who made the Verde River part of their overall outdoorsy vacation.
Whether tourism and the revenue it brings bounces back quickly or slowly is anyone’s guess. Many out-of-state summer vacationers took trips elsewhere and won’t be looking at Sedona and the Verde Valley until later in the year or next year so those revenues are just gone. There are still a few weeks before Arizona’s schools resume meaning families statewide make take the opportunity to vacation here after being denied earlier in the summer, or it may be just those who already planned to come in late July already.
On our end, coverage of the Pocket Fire has been nonstop from our staff, with reporters Joseph K. Giddens and James T. Kling, photojournalist David Jolkovski, former photojournalist Daulton Venglar and myself providing daily updates, interviews, informational stories and links. We logged more than 9.7 million visits to our social media posts, videos and photographs as they spread online, with some individual posts and dramatic photos garnering more than 100,000 visits and a few well over 900,000. Readers and visitors want to know what was happening daily and we were eager to provide whatever information we could. We thanks all those who shared their images and videos with our readers.
